


joke: once, if I remember well, I sat judy on my knees and...

by HarveyWallbanger



Series: A Letter In Your Writing Doesn't Mean You're Not Dead [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alcohol, Blood, Canonical Character Death, Disturbing Themes, Domestic Violence, Drunk Sex, Giles' wild years, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Violence, naughty bad magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 13:03:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2069256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Performative masculinity, ancient ecstatic rites, and other dangerous pursuits for young men.</p>
            </blockquote>





	joke: once, if I remember well, I sat judy on my knees and...

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from the poem, "Notice 2", by Patti Smith. The italicized quotes are from Siouxsie Sioux's segment in the Banshees' "Play At Home" special. As usual, do not try any of this at home. Also as usual, I am not involved in the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and this school is not involved in the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No one pays me to do this. Thank you, and good night.

Rising as though through water, a weighted thing that's slipped free- dreamlike horror: “...he thinks he's so daring and contrary, wearing straight-legged trousers.”  
“Nice trousers!” calls a man's voice.  
Every inch of his flinches, and involuntarily, Rupert glances down at his poor unfashionable trousers. He turns, lets his face twist into into a sneer, facilitated by his refusal to wear his glasses: he has to squint to make out the speaker. The man is about as young as Rupert, with features both refined and sensual- laughing eyes- hair of soft brown that falls in curls down to his shoulders. Rupert searches his conversational repertoire and dredges up the sterling “You what?” A ridiculous response to a ridiculous insult. Ask a silly question; get a silly answer.  
“Oh, I'm sorry,” says the man, “I thought you were somebody else.”  
“Who's that, then?” Rupert's sneer converts o a grin, and his voice sounds pleasingly rough to his ears, “Your boyfriend, darling?” He nods at the girl next to the man, “Or maybe yours? Whoever he is, you could do better, tits like those.” Here comes the relief. It's almost alcoholic. He's made the right noises, acted in a perfectly convincing manner. Anyone would think he was born to it. Victory is his.  
Then, the girl laughs, the luxurious laugh of the thoroughly unbothered, and the man turns to her and says, “And I couldn't? When my tits are so much better than yours, Deirdre.”  
“Your arse, maybe,” she laughs again, “but the front end leaves a lot to be desired. Are you going to stay here and amuse yourself with this?”  
“I think I might.” And here it comes again. Oh, no. Rupert feels himself flinch again; he's constricted, unable to move- oscifying- petrifying. He could say, “You what?”, but he's already used that one. Oh, damn. Oh, shit. What's he going to do, now? It's never gone like this before.  
“I'm going,” says the girl, Deirdre, “I'll see you later, Ethan. Don't play too hard.” And then she winks- winks!- at Rupert- at him!- turns, a volta of Titian hair and burgundy velvet, and strides away.  
And he's alone, with this stranger, with Ethan, who's looking not even through him, but into him, and fuck- what kind of trouble has he found himself in, now? He's sufficiently aware to grasp that this will not be a situation he can fight his way out of. Unless he's quick. And he's not quick, and he's not wearing his glasses, and the only defensive spells he knows are great, ponderous affairs full of Latin verbs-  
“Oh, calm down,” says Ethan irritably, a frown slashed across his face, “I'm not going to harm you. Though, I suppose I should. Teach you a lesson about manners, or something. Deirdre'd like that. She's no patience for rude men. I suppose I could just tell her that I'd turned you into a toad. If you promised to behave yourself. From now on.”  
Ethan's eyes seem black at first, but they're simply very dark brown. Almost golden, where the light gets caught up in them. Very softly: “But how would you make sure I'd kept my promise?” As though stricken, Rupert bows his head. It's the eyes. He's been mesmerized. He's read about this sort of thing. Vampires do it sometimes. If vampires can do it, so must humans be able to acquire the ability-  
“No. I don't think I'll turn you into anything.” In Ethan's voice, as in his eyes, there's laughter, and it hurts. Hurts Rupert in someplace he didn't know existed. A strange and watery pain. “I think I'll let you make up your own mind about what you'd like to be. What's your name?”  
He could remain silent. “Rupert.”  
“'Made of stone'. Are you made of stone?”  
He shakes his head. “That isn't what it means at all.”  
“What does it mean, then?”  
He finds his voice. Well, a voice. It's one he likes. Dry and brittle. The breath of autumn in his mouth. “I really must be going.” And go, he does. And he doesn't look back.

He's had a nasty shock, so he heads straight for home. There's a little trickle of guilt down the back of his neck at the thought of not going out, even later on, when the streets are far emptier. To look for trouble, of course. To get drunk, and irritate women, and, and to carouse... and things like that. Life is for living, is it not?  
Really, is it not? His shoulders slump without his participation, his correct posture lost in a soup of shapeless clothes and shamed resignation. There's a noise in the alley just ahead, and his shoulders shoot right up. He jams his right hand into his coat pocket where it finds the stake he keeps there, and his left creeps lizard-like up the front of his jumper to his collar and under, pulling up the crucifix underneath by its chain.  
“No... no,” he hears, standing at the mouth of the alley. At the very end, just behind some bins, are two people. Well, one person, a girl, and one vampire, male, obviously in the process of biting her neck. For a second, Rupert stands and watches, as though he were like the bins, like the bricks that make up the walls; one of life's props- an inanimate object with no responsibility. “Please... Oh, no... no.” The vampire chuckles. Rupert sighs, and bounds forward.  
If he'd been more observant, it might have registered that the shoulders he grabs are warm, which is, of course, unusual in vampires. But he's not very observant, at all, and he hits the young man, who is not a vampire, not even remotely, a couple of times, very hard, before he even notices that the girl with him is screaming.  
“Help! Police! Police! My boyfriend's being attacked!” she yells into the street. Rupert looks at the face he's been hitting, the face of the young man, a boy, really. He puts down his hands. The girl runs back over, in time to catch her boyfriend as his legs bend beneath him. “Johnny!” she gasps at her boyfriend, and then yelps at Rupert, “You evil bastard- what the hell do you think you're doing? What are you, some kind of fucking pervert? Police!” she cries again. Now, there's someone standing at the at edge of the street. “You, there!” he calls after Rupert as Rupert runs past him.  
Tonight, he's definitely drinking, but he's doing it at home. Well, the place he's been calling home, a rented room in a little gray house at the end of a long gray street. In his room, he drinks, as though filling himself with sleep until he's transformed and he becomes it. He closes his eyes, and has fretful dreams about vampires mocking his clothing.

If work is the curse of the drinking class, then what is the curse of the thinking class? Sobriety, if one is viewing it symmetrically. Maybe thinking is its own curse. Maybe the thing to do is make it so that he can't think anymore. Drinking is the salvation of the thinking class.  
He can't stand lager. This shames him to such a great degree that it haunts his sleepless hours. If he could only take on the right habits, he'd swiftly become the right kind of person. That's what it is to be the right kind of person, is it not? Right action breeds right thought, which cleans the self, from the soul outward to the body. Sheepishly, he regards his gin and tonic. Bottoms up.  
Before he gets his bottom anywhere near the correct height, he's jostled, and most of his drink ends up on his trousers. It is not in his nature to be mean about material things, but he left Oxford in a hurry and brought very little with him to London, and he's already been to the launderette this week.  
“You fucking ponce,” he spits, enough alcohol already in him to make the words come up without hesitation. Bile simply pours from him at occasions like this: first verbally, and eventually literally. Before he can turn around to take what's coming to him, a rushed apology or an invitation to go outside trade blows, a soft voice says, close to his ear, “I'm so sorry, Rupert. I don't know how I could have been so clumsy.”  
It's as though his shoulders are the helm of a ship, and there, the captain pulls hard on the wheel, only to run the ship aground on beach of spikes. Mechanically, Rupert turns to face his fate. “Oh, it's you. Didn't think this was your kind of place. Y'know, too many girls here. Girls who are really girls, anyway.”  
“Oh, everyone has enough girl in them to make them interesting. Everyone's got some boy in them, too.” Ethan smiles radiantly, and gently pokes out an elbow at Deirdre, who falls in upon it, laughing and covering her mouth.  
“You said his name was Rupert,” she laughs, then composes herself, “but he looks a bit more like 'Ripper'!” As she finishes the sentence, she bends at the waist, laughing again, now a genuine cackle, storybook witch as well as Circe. Ethan's laugh is softer, less inebriated, but still real, still at Rupert's expense.  
“Oh, you think it's funny,” Rupert mutters, looking at Ethan, “I should make you lick it up.”  
“I dare you,” Deirdre gasps, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other around Ethan's waist.  
Ethan's grin softens to a waning curve. “Do you think I should? Would you?”  
“In a second, if it would shut him up.”  
“I'll bet you would.”  
Deirdre's looking at Rupert, now, her mouth closed, and her lips twisted into an ugly smirk that somehow makes her even more beautiful.  
“Is that what you'd like, Ripper?” For a moment, Ethan looks grave, and then, he lets forth a grand burst of laughter.  
He's really got to find someplace better to get drunk. “Fuck you both,” Rupert murmurs, stands, and walks by them, giving Ethan a light shove with his shoulder largely to avoid bumping into Deirdre. Outside, it's begun to rain. He pulls his face into the nastiest scowl he can manage, and sticks a cigarette between his lips. It takes him a minute of futilely fussing with matches before it occurs to him to stand under the canopy of the building he just exited. He's already losing his ability to think. Good for him.  
“I really am sorry about that little scene back there.”  
To his credit, Rupert doesn't jump at the sound of Ethan's voice. “Oh, for Christ's sake-” Rupert slumps his shoulders and regards the heavens. “Can you not just leave me alone? You're cleverer than I am- you and your friend- I've fully grasped that fact. You win.”  
“I don't think I'm cleverer than you are. The first time was honestly a case of mistaken identity. I really did think that you were a friend of mine. And if you recall correctly, your reaction was hardly proportionate to the perceived slight. In fact, I don't recall saying or doing anything, beyond the initial comment, to trouble you in any way. And just now, well, I am clumsy. I'm terribly clumsy. But I did want to do something to bother you- if it's so dire, I'll buy you a new pair of trousers.”  
“I don't need your money,” Rupert murmurs around his cigarette. He takes a drag, then regards it, holds it under the rain, watches as a drop hits the ember and makes it fizz out a finger of smoke.  
“No. You have plenty of your own.”  
“You don't know anything about me.”  
“Perhaps you're right. But I can guess, extrapolate from the available evidence. You have money, but don't want people to know that you do.”  
“I don't-”  
Ethan rolls his eyes. “All right- not you. Your family. You're here to escape whatever it is that people like you escape. Some horrible fate. Maybe they're making you marry someone terrible. Maybe you aren't ready to take over the kingdom just yet. Maybe you're afraid of your power, of who you are. Maybe you don't yet know who you are.”  
“Stop it.”  
“Stop what? Have I struck a nerve?”  
“I'll strike you if you don't stop.”  
“You use the suggestion of violence when you feel unsure, but you don't go further than that. Hit me, if you'd like. I'm not made of glass. No more than you're made of stone.”  
He throws his cigarette out into the rain, looks to where it must have landed, out there in the dark. There isn't a soul out there, in the dark, in the night. He slaps Ethan, with the back of his hand. There comes the memory of his mother doing the same to his father, on the foyer, for some offense unknown to Rupert, after coming home from a night out, viewed by Rupert from between the banister's stripes, some ten years earlier. He'd been home from school for Christmas. It was after Christmas, but not yet time to return to school, and the year was nothing but dregs, dense and so strong in taste as to be tasteless. The thrill he'd felt at seeing this didn't set itself into context and meaning for another few years, and when the realization came, he locked himself in the upstairs lavatory and sobbed silently through his nose until he wearied and fell asleep. The memory, both memories rise like the smoke from the wet cigarette, and he puts his hand over his mouth. Beatifically, Ethan smiles, and presents the other side of his face. Rupert breathes in roughly through his nose, and hits Ethan with the palm of his hand.  
“There,” says Ethan, “that wasn't so diff-”  
Rupert is sufficiently drunk that the terror that he feels when he kisses Ethan is nothing more than a passing suggestion. 

Ethan lives with his parents in the kind of fashionable and wealthy area that would make Rupert's own family fall into genteelly disgusted silence. It's far too new, and nothing new can ever be of any worth. The people they pass on the street have an openness, a taut and showy pride in themselves that seems almost obscene to him. A young woman in a long glossy fur smiles at Rupert, and he feels both the twist of panic and that of envy.  
Ethan speaks: “Now, you mustn't think that I'm bringing you home to show off to my parents. They won't be there. My brothers stop by every once in a while, but they're far too self-absorbed to care about you, and my sister finds all of my friends revolting.”  
“How many of there are you?”  
“At home, or in general?”  
“Both, I suppose.”  
“At home, there's myself, obviously, my father, Mummy, and Naomi, my sister. And, of course, the butler, the housemaids, the stable boys- but you'll have taken all of that for granted, coming from where you do.”  
“You don't know where I come from.”  
“I know the type.”  
“Chippiness doesn't become you.”  
“No, I suppose that's more your style.”  
“Fuck this.”  
He starts when Ethan grabs his arm, the strength of his hand belied by its delicacy. “Truce. Peace. I'm just a bit nervous. I don't usually bring people home, actually. Deirdre's the only one I let come around regularly.”  
“Are you and she- oh, you know.”  
“No, I'm afraid I don't.”  
“Is she your girlfriend? Or are you-”  
“A complete bender? No, only a partial one. It's she who's a dedicated Sapphist.”  
“Oh.”  
“You've turned white.”  
“I just-”  
Ethan regards him with pity that he isn't sure is genuine or ironic. “You didn't suspect? They don't all favor a Jeanne d'Arc haircut and a boiler suit.”  
“I know that. I just, you know-”  
“You thought that, maybe, if it didn't work out between us, you'd turn to her for tea and sympathy?”  
“You make it sound so sordid.”  
“It's a gift.” Ethan puts his hand on a tall gate of black iron encircling a house like an iceberg, a great white thing made up of points. “Ah. Here we are.”

The engagement of the senses was something that Rupert had always been given to understand was vulgar. Paintings were acceptable, portraits of the honored dead and landscapes showing the world as it should be, untilled and uninhabited, images of an Eden in spirit or in fact. Sculpture, though, was too much. Relics could be tolerated, if useful, but should only be entrusted to the right people, and then, kept out of common sight. In the parlor of Ethan's house is prominently displayed a collection of ritual knives in a variety of materials from a variety of times and places. The blood came away from them years and years ago, but the ghost of it sings, makes the blood in Rupert's head froth and whine.  
“These aren't real,” Rupert says, but he can't tell whether it's a question or an affirmation.  
“You know they are,” Ethan says, coming up behind him, standing close. Close enough to be available for touching. If Rupert is willing to touch. “You can feel it. What they did. What they were made for.”  
“No,” Rupert whispers.  
“'No' what? No, you can't feel it, or no, you don't want to?”  
“I don't know.”  
“You're not sensitive- not enough to have it stand out- but you aren't completely dead, there. Dead in the sensitive parts of yourself.” Ethan's breath flares out against his ear; Rupert imagines it leaving Ethan's body like a dragon's flame. “You know things, too. Things you might not want to know, but things that are useful.”  
It's a terrible burden, knowing the truth about himself, but telling no one. It's a terrible burden, too, the desire to tell Ethan, to tell him everything. But which does he want, confession or silence? The air in the house is gently warm, golden with afternoon light, but so heavy with the scent of perfume or incense or who knows what as to be irredeemably sinister. He wants to go outside. He wants to find the bathroom, run a cold bath, and sink into it, fully clothed, drown the scent in his nose and the thoughts in his head and the feelings in his body. “I had to learn them,” he says.  
“Your family made you.”  
“Yes.” He feels the blood vessels in his ears, his cheeks, his throat, dilate and fill.  
“It was rather the same for me. Tradition,” Ethan says detachedly and shrugs. “Some people are made to go to church every Sunday. I like to think I'm making the best of it. Come on. I'll show you how.”

It's horrible, and it's beneath him, but it's the first time in a long time that he's really felt good, uncomplicatedly good. He's laughing so hard his middle begins to ache. “That's-” he breathes in, then out, “That's how you're making the best of it? By conjuring ten pound notes? Oh, Ethan...” Rupert drags the back of his hand over his eyes, dragging tears with it. “Oh, Ethan- I'm sorry. But this is ridiculous.”  
“It's magic,” Ethan folds his arms over his chest and shrugs, “There's supposed to be an element of the absurd. Otherwise, it's just,” he makes a face, “tea and cake with the vicar every week until you die.”  
“But this is just,” Rupert breathes in, composes himself, “a waste.”  
“It's not a waste. I'm saving money. That's the opposite of a waste.”  
“But it's- it's beneath you. If you have enough power to change reality, in an observable and immediate way, then surely, you can do... something better.”  
“And get all of the qualifications, and register myself, and go to work for the government- or, better yet, the Watcher's Council?”  
He needs to sit down. But he's already seated. “The what?” he says blandly.  
“Oh, come,” Ethan laughs. Does he know? Can he know? “If you're from a family like ours-” the word 'ours' makes Rupert feel peculiar, “like mine or yours, then you've at least heard of the Watchers.”  
“It sounds familiar. But it's a bit vague, isn't it? What are they meant to be watching?”  
“The Vampire Slayer, of course. You've really never heard of any of this?”  
“Well, as I said, it sounds familiar, but I don't recall it ever being discussed.”  
“I'll tell you a story, then. You can sit on my knee, if you'd like. Oh, don't come over all indignant. Fine, stay over there. The Vampire Slayer is a young lady chosen at random from all of her sex to defend humanity from vampires, as the name implies, and all of the other ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties that go bump in the night. The Watchers, as that name implies, watch over her. Mainly to ensure that she doesn't get ideas above her station. They say that once she's reached a certain maturity, the age of twenty-five is customary, assuming, obviously, that she hasn't met her doom before then, that someone from the Council is sent to kill her, so that the next Slayer will be called. It'd be somebody she trusts, I'd imagine, probably her own personal Watcher. There are rumors of all sorts of additional nastiness- brutal training; girls plucked from their families long before they've received their power, raised by Watchers to ensure total obedience; bizarre rituals meant to prove loyalty to the Council; the hoarding of items of great power; scientific experiments on both Slayers and vampires.”  
“If they were so evil, surely somebody would... do something.”  
“Ah, but who? Who would be so powerful, and so foolhardy? No one, so they go unchallenged.”  
“If you hate them so much, why don't you do something?”  
Ethan laughs. “I don't hate them. I don't care enough about them to hate them. I don't hate anybody, really. It's too much effort, altogether. Now, would you like to have a flick through my mother's books? She has some truly interesting stuff, but it's all Greek to me. I mean, literally; it's in ancient Greek, which was never my strong suit.”  
“What makes you think I speak it?”  
“Don't be coy. It'd be a waste of your schooling not to use what you've learned. Come on. I'll pour you a drink, make the translation flow more smoothly.”

The books are surely extremely old and extremely valuable. Touching them with his bare hands feels vicious and thrilling. If his father could see him-  
“Ah. This is interesting.”  
“What's that, Ripper?”  
“You aren't going to start calling me that, are you?”  
Ethan sits down on the floor next to him, reaches across him and the books- Rupert sucks in a gasp- with a brimming tumbler, and sets the drink down next to Rupert.  
“Why not? It suits you.”  
Rupert is suddenly aware of the beating of his heart, but chooses to ignore it. “In what way, precisely, does it suit me?”  
“Y'know- like what you're doing, now, tearing away the veil of ignorance and shedding light on the benighted rabble. That would be me.”  
To spite himself, Rupert laughs.  
“Also, it's a bit sexy, don't you think? A bit dangerous. 'Here comes Ripper- he'll rip your heart out. Rip your clothes off.'”  
“Ethan-”  
“I didn't say you had to rip off my clothes. That's the furthest thing from my mind.”  
“You're hardly subtle.”  
“Nor are you. All that awful sexist posturing when I first met you. Thank fuck you stopped trying it on with Deirdre. I thought she was going to do something unpleasant.”  
“Well, she's a lesbian. It'd be a bit futile.”  
“Yes, but you'd stopped before you knew she was a lesbian.”  
“I just got used to her, I suppose.”  
“You stopped being afraid of her. But you're still afraid of me.”  
He's not sure whether or not he's offended. He's sure that he's meant to be. That that is what Ethan wants. That does frighten Rupert- the idea of being provoked. Provoked into doing what? And could he stop himself? And would he want to? Ethan is close to him. He can smell whatever cologne or aftershave he wears, which he must bathe in, and the tilled earth scent of his French cigarettes, and the gin sweating out of him, and beneath all of that, clean laundry. This is the scent Rupert tries to separate from the others, to breathe in that, alone- the scent of a home. Not his home, but somebody's. Somebody cares enough to make sure that Ethan's clothing is clean. Somebody loves him. Ethan is warm, giving off a bloom of heat from his bare throat and forearms. It's a cold day, outside, but the blood beneath Ethan's skin is like the sea in summer. To feel that warmth, would it be worth it, to do things Rupert's not sure he wants to do? But where does the wanting of warmth end, and the other kind of wanting begin?  
“Maybe I am,” Rupert says, “Do you want me to be?”  
“No. Not even a little bit. Let's put away the books for a while. I'm getting a headache. You can finish that drink, if you like, but I think I'd like a cup of tea. Would you? Ah, good. I'll have someone brew a pot for us.”

Ethan's close to him. And he feels close to Ethan. If he didn't know better, he'd suspect an enchantment. It'd have to be a very deft one, though, and he doubts that Ethan possesses the needed appreciation for nuance.  
Or perhaps, he does. He's gentler, now, imperceptively so to others, but glaringly to Rupert. He still makes little jokes at Rupert's expense, teases him, makes unflattering guesses as to Rupert's identity and provenance, but it resembles in tone the way Rupert's seen him behave with Deirdre, and with another friend of theirs, Randall, whom Ethan knows from school. There are two others, in what Ethan archly refers to as their magic circle, Thomas and Philip, who seemed to have come prepackaged as a set, when Deirdre became friendly with them after seeing them at several parties. They're new friends, to be treated warmly but with barely-hidden suspicion. With which Deirdre and the others still approach him, but Ethan  
is close to him. Whether it's lust tempered by an uncharacteristic patience, or actual affection, Rupert doesn't know. Can't imagine. Hasn't seen enough of either to be able to. Is he being seduced? Does he mind? He can go anytime he wants to. Ethan has made that clear, in the way in which he says things that mean nothing and everything at once. Rupert can't imagine what interest he holds for Ethan, unless it's the thrill of a mystery. Tell him, and break the spell. Tell the truth to learn it. He can't. He has to.  
“I'm one of them.”  
“One of who, Ripper?”  
“Don't call me that. My family are, and I'll be, one day. Part of the Watchers Council.”  
“Really? Is it true, then, about all the murder and intrigue?”  
“I'm afraid I don't know.”  
“You haven't been initiated yet, then, I take it. Haven't learned the secret handshake- wait, no, those are the Masons.”  
“Ethan, please be serious.”  
“I am being serious. Is this your horrible secret, the thing you're running from?”  
“I suppose so.”  
“I don't blame you. It sounds like a dreadful career path. What would you like to do?”  
“I'm- I'm afraid I don't know what you mean.”  
“I mean, what do you want to do about your situation? Do you mean to go back, eventually? Do you want to stay here? In London, I mean, not in my house. Though, we could always make up a little room for you. I could. No one else would have to know. It'd be like bringing home a stray cat and keeping it as a pet, in secret. Are you any good at catching mice? No, I suppose not.”  
“I don't really know what I want to do.”  
“So, just stay where you are a while.”  
“In London, you mean.”  
“In London. In my house. Whichever one you like.”  
“Ethan, I don't think I- I'm sorry for leading you on.”  
Ethan's smile is conciliatorily lopsided. “It's not the worst thing somebody's done to me.”  
“I could try to- you know-”  
“That's absurd. You can't try to feel something- I suppose you can, but if you have to try, it probably isn't real.”  
“But let me try.”  
“Rupert-”  
He can still pull back. Ethan's cheek under his hand is soft. He doesn't want to pull back. Silently, he begs any listening deity for a sign. Prove it me that I don't want to do this. Prove to me the absence of desire. Nobody moves in either direction. Nobody ever does.  
For the second time in his life, he kisses Ethan. All at once, it does make sense. Everything- what he wants, what he doesn't want. It must be magic. Giddy, he laughs, and Ethan opens the space between them, but keeps his hand on Rupert's shoulder. “Are you entirely all right?” Ethan asks.  
“I just- I've been thinking about this, for so long, and I kept thinking that it wasn't what I really wanted, that it couldn't be, that I was just cold, and that I needed to feel warm, and I suppose that that's true, but there's more. I like you.”  
“I'm thrilled to hear it.”  
“Just please. Please. Be serious. This isn't easy for me. I don't do things like this.”  
“I'll refrain from making the expected joke about public school.”  
“Thank you for that. I don't do things like this, normally.”  
“With men, you mean.”  
“With anybody.” Ethan's eyebrows ascend to the firmament. “I mean,” Rupert continues, “I don't get involved with people I'm not supposed to get involved with.”  
“People not from your world.”  
“Yes,” he sighs.  
“Are you, perhaps, just going through a rebellious phase? I'd just like to know what to expect, is all.”  
Rupert shakes his head. “I don't know.”  
“I don't want you to feel any regret about any of this.”  
“And if I do, it's mine to feel; not yours to prevent.”  
“True. But you aren't the only one who fears being hurt.”  
“I'm not afraid of being hurt.”  
“Well, maybe I'm the only one who fears being hurt. You're, what, nineteen, you said? I'm not. Not exactly ancient, but not nineteen. I like to have fun, I like to play games, but only when everyone involved is aware of the rules. I don't want to play games with you. And I am being serious, now, just like you asked. I don't want to be used as an experience, and then thrown away.”  
“No.”  
“No, you wouldn't do that, or No, you don't accept that?”  
“I don't want to throw you away.”  
“I don't want something permanent. Please don't think that I'm unreasonable. I just want something real.”  
“Yes.”  
“Yes, you understand-”  
“Yes.”  
For the third time in his life, he kisses Ethan, and after that, he stops counting. He's not lacking in imagination, and he's not unaware of life, but what he expected rapidly parts company with what actually happens. He'd thought that Ethan would want to direct him, would expect deference to his greater experience, even obedience, but none of this is true. Rupert made a lucky guess that night, in the rain, and the pieces that consequently clicked into place for him are complimentary to parts of Ethan. Rupert bruises him, bites him, paints him with kisses over the marks, feels him tremble, hears him beg for more. His hand fits perfectly around Ethan's throat; he can hold Ethan down with almost no effort. He'd imagined this, but he couldn't have imagined it as it really was. He didn't know. How could he? Ethan isn't made of glass. He's made of water. He takes it all, and never tires. And in his abandon, he never really loses control. It's Rupert who needs to fear drowning. Being pulled under by, and succumbing completely to this boiling sea that rolls beneath him, twists and convulses and wraps around him and spills over him, calling his name. 

It's Midsummer, and since there aren't any convenient groves or standing stones available, they're celebrating at a bar. It's the kind of place where Rupert would have felt defensive and vaguely defeated. If he were there on his own. But he isn't. Deirdre is telling a long story that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but for reasons best known to herself, she finds hilarious, which makes it hilarious to the rest of them. Randall apparently already knows the story, and offers occasional prompts in a voice that is soft but strangely arresting. Thomas keeps looking over toward Philip, who's left the table to talk to a girl, until Deirdre says, sharply and too loudly, Missing your other half? Thomas has been drinking more than any of them- except Rupert, himself- and gets up in a huff.  
“He'll be back,” says Randall.  
“Of course he will,” sniffs Deirdre, “Where was I...”  
Rupert's drunk enough to let Ethan take his hand and hold it in his. When Ethan moves his hands, to light a cigarette, Rupert leaves it where it is, waits for Ethan to clasp it again. It's surprising, but not really surprising at all, when there comes from somewhere in the background somebody hooting about shirtlifters and how this used to be a decent place. Rupert can hear it coming closer, and he's already standing up, Ethan's hand still on his, resting there but not holding him back, when Deidre mutters something he doesn't quite understand, and there comes a crash.  
“That was unfortunate,” murmurs Randall, looking over his shoulder. Rupert looks as well, and sees that a couple of young men have somehow run afoul of some glassware, and are futilely attempting to stuff the blood pouring from their faces back in.  
“Now, if everybody could stop interrupting me,” says Deirdre, taking a sip of her drink, “I'd like to finish this story.”

They, Rupert and the others as well a couple of girls Philip and Deirdre have brought along, go back to Randall's house. It's in some part of town Rupert can't place, isolated, a huge and ancient affair with high ceilings and staircases that seem to go on forever.  
“It's a bit of a walk, but if we're sufficiently committed, I think we might make the drinks cabinet,” says Randall. His face is so serene as to almost be featureless; it's unnerving in the half-light that comes from no discernible location, somewhere in the distance. They all set off, up a staircases, and down one corridor, and then another. First, Deirdre and her friend open a closed door and pull each other into the room behind it. A little while later, after they've been walking for Rupert doesn't know how long, Philip hooks one arm around the waist of the girl he brought with him and the other around Thomas' shoulders, and they disappear.  
“And then, there were three,” says Randall, walking a little bit ahead of Ethan and Rupert. Sobriety is beginning to drift over him, and Rupert gives Ethan a look. Ethan must divine the panic behind it, because he says into Rupert's ear, “You're not his type.”  
Finally, Randall says, Here we are, and pushes open a pair of great doors. The room must be somebody's study, or perhaps, a small library. Randall turns on first one lamp, then another, and then goes toward a large, dark cabinet. “Your poison?” he asks.  
“Gin,” mutters Rupert.  
“Two large gins,” says Ethan, his voice filling the space.  
“Is there no one else here?” asks Rupert.  
“What's that?” asks Randall, bringing them their drinks.  
“Is there anyone else here?”  
“No. We're alone. My parents aren't in town at the moment. I'm not even supposed to be here, actually,” Randall says and turns. He comes back with his own drink. “They think I'm in Oxford, actually.”  
“There's a lot of that going around,” says Ethan, and Rupert elbows him in the ribs. “Don't be like that, Ripper; it's not nice to keep secrets from Randall.”  
“It's my secret, to keep or not.”  
Randall smiles. “No one need tell me anything. Don't quarrel on my account. I've got some books that might be of interest,” he finishes his drink, “You two make yourselves comfortable while I go and get them.”  
When Randall is gone, Rupert hisses, “Who else have you told?”  
“Nobody. On my honor.”  
“As though you had any.”  
Ethan rolls his eyes. “Well, that was a predictable jab.”  
Rupert empties his glass, puts it down, and strikes Ethan with the back of his hand. “What about that one?”  
Gently, Ethan touches his cheek, checking for damage. “Always. It used to be amusing when you were feeling defensive and overcompensated; it's not very amusing anymore.”  
“Maybe you'd like to be done with me, then.”  
“Feeling insecure? Good. If you're going to behave this way, you should worry about your place in my affections. And what happened to not caring if you got hurt? Starting to care, are we? Falling a little bit in love, perhaps? With me, with my friends, with this life? That's good, too. These are the best days of your life, Ripper. I doubt you've ever been this happy.”  
“Shut up.”  
Ethan shrugs. “Make me. But you can't make yourself into the man they want you to be. Why don't you stop fighting?”  
He puts his hand around Ethan's throat, but doesn't squeeze. What he does do is move it down, to Ethan's collarbone, and then to his shoulder. He places the other hand on Ethan's other shoulder, and moves him backward. He means to push, but the alcohol must be making him slow, because the motion is gentle, and Ethan is moving with him. Now, Ethan has his back to the wall, and Randall could come back at any moment, but Rupert doesn't care.  
“You could stay,” says Ethan, “You could stay here forever, if you wanted. Never go back. And if you want to remain a mystery, I'll keep your secret. I won't tell a soul.”  
He doesn't know how, but he's started feeling dizzy, unmoored from the world. The rational response would be to push Ethan away, to run out of this house, and into the street. But the house is a labyrinth, and he could never find his way out. And the streets are cold and damp, and always either too empty or too full. Where would he run? All the way back to Oxford? And pretend that none of this had happened, and tell nobody? Exchange one secret for another? He's filled with a swimming nausea that has nothing to do with alcohol, unbearable but for the glowing cinder in his belly, the thought of keeping Ethan to himself forever, even as just a source of shame-  
But he's not a source of shame. He's warm and he's breathing heavily, waiting, and Rupert knows that he could wait forever, but Rupert can't, so he kisses Ethan.  
And kisses him and kisses him, hard then softly, his mouth, and the place where he struck him, and his throat. Before he can think about it, stop himself, he's on his knees, his arms wrapped around Ethan's waist, his mouth pressed to Ethan's belly through his shirt, marking the material wet, and then pressed to the crotch of his trousers, where he pauses.  
“Fallen asleep?”  
“Fuck you.”  
“You're under no obligation, of course, but it wouldn't do to get stuck in that position.”  
Rupert snorts, opens Ethan's trousers and yanks them down past his hips. The sound that Ethan makes is fantastic, a gasp that could be of fear, or surprise, or excitement. Rupert breathes in deeply, too loudly, wraps his hand around Ethan's cock and takes as much of it as he can into his mouth. Even using his hand as well, his jaw begins to hurt almost immediately. His legs are falling asleep, and Ethan has begun to pull his hair, in what Rupert isn't sure is approval or annoyance. The last time he did this, he was even more drunk than he currently is, and he can't remember finishing. Surely, it didn't take this long. Is Ethan doing this on purpose? Is he up there, thinking about something dreadful, trying to draw it out, just to get at him? Or, possibly, Rupert's just not very good at this. Or-  
“Don't stop,” Ethan whispers, “Please,” and Rupert half remembers something about trying to drive a stake into the heart of a vampire that wasn't a vampire, but it must have been a dream- Ethan gasps, and his hips jerk forward, and without thinking, Rupert takes him deeper and almost chokes, but he manages, somehow, to find a rhythm, they both do, and now, they're moving together, fast and wet, and the erection that Rupert had lost sometime around the time his left knee went numb returns, almost painfully. He's holding Ethan against him when Ethan comes, his body moving as though with convulsions, Rupert's fingers digging into Ethan's hips, and Ethan's hands over his own. Breathing heavily, Ethan lets go of him, and Rupert pulls back slowly, almost afraid to move.  
“Shall I get you a-” Ethan begins, but Rupert shrugs, and swallows before he can convince himself not to.  
“Help me up,” Rupert says, his voice ragged.  
Ethan pulls him up, and then pulls him close. “What shall I do for you, now?”  
Rupert takes Ethan's hand by the wrist, presses it between his legs, holds it there until the pressure becomes unbearable. Ethan smiles. “Oh, yes.”

The next morning, the eight of them somehow find themselves downstairs, in the dining room, looking at a breakfast that has appeared from parts unknown. Deirdre is the only one who has any interest in eating. “Shouldn't have overdone it last night,” she says with her mouth full. Next to her, her date smiles absently. Her face isn't made-up, and she wears dark glasses.  
“No one likes a gloater,” replies Ethan in only a shadow of his usual jollity. Cautiously, he sips tea from a cup that he holds with a shaking hand. In the other, a cigarette burns, all but forgotten. When it burns down too far, Rupert takes it, has a final puff, and puts it out. Swearing, he tries to brush the ash from the table, but just grinds it in.  
“Don't worry about it,” says Randall. He barely sounds awake.  
“Excuse me,” croaks the girl who accompanied Philip, and jumps up.  
“I hope she isn't sick in a closet,” says Deirdre.  
“Don't be disgusting,” Randall huffs.  
“I can't help it. It's in my nature.”  
It's well into the afternoon by the time anyone other than Deirdre is in any shape to really do anything. Rupert dozes in a chair in some room he can't remember wandering into, Ethan either flipping through books nearby, or pacing an atrium just outside a pair of French doors. When Rupert awakes, Ethan reports to him that Thomas and Philip left to escort home their lady friend; Deirdre and hers are upstairs napping. Randall apparently never found his books last night, and is still searching for them.  
“How are you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?” Ethan asks, and moves Rupert's hair away from his forehead.  
“Less like ending it all. And you?”  
“Battered but exhilarated. I can't recall when I last had such a lovely time.”  
“Are you being sarcastic? I'm too hungover to tell.”  
“Not in the slightest. This morning, I awoke with a sense of tremendous optimism.”  
“Is that what they're calling it.”  
Ethan grins. “No, I mean that I feel as though we're about to begin something wonderful. You and I, and the others, as well.”  
Rupert yawns, “And imagine if we'd been sober.”  
“I'm not just talking about sex. I mean,” Ethan makes an open gesture, “I mean, I think that life is going to change for us. For the better.”  
All Rupert can think to say is, “I hope you're right.”  
Randall appears, holding a stack of books. “Ah. Good. You're up. These were what I wanted to show you. I don't know that there's anything really good in here,” he puts them down on a table, “but they're certainly interesting.”  
Ethan goes right over, but Rupert hesitates. Suddenly, he feels reluctant to do anything but continue falling in and out of sleep. It's the first time, he realizes, that he's ever wanted for nothing. He could stay here forever, half-asleep, Ethan's presence neither near nor far, like the sun that allows the earth to neither scald nor freeze. He yawns, stands, and drags himself to where Ethan stands, already immersed in the books. Rupert pats his pockets, finds his glasses, and puts them on.

They're at Ethan's house. Where he more or less lives, at this point. If Ethan's parents have anything to say about this, it hasn't been within Rupert's hearing. Do they even know that he's there? Has Ethan explained him at all? Do they know who he is, or are they the sort of people to confuse one of their child's friends for another? Do they, perhaps, think that he's Randall? He has a room of his own. Every morning, someone goes in to make up his bed. In vain, because he's been sleeping with Ethan. Even when Ethan annoys him, or he makes Ethan cross, they share a bed. Like a married couple, Ethan says, and Rupert can't even bothered to be irritated. It is like being married. Though, it's nothing like any marriage he's ever observed. Certainly nothing like that of his parents.  
Ethan has him interrogating his mother's books again.  
“Just learn Greek, for fuck's sake,” Rupert says.  
“As though it were so easy.”  
“You do well enough with Latin; you have a good basis.”  
“I'll learn if you teach me.”  
“I'm not much of a teacher.”  
“But you certainly look the part, with your glasses and your studious expression. Someday, you'll no doubt be a dusty old academic.”  
Rupert snorts. “Not likely.”  
“Then, what do you want to do?”  
“You sound like my father- actually, no, you don't, because he told me what I wanted to do. Not just had to do, but wanted to do. It wasn't enough to control my life; my soul had to be in it, as well.”  
“Where is your soul?”  
Rupert takes off his glasses. “Here, of course, with my body.”  
“It certainly is. Have you managed to find anything of any interest in there?” Ethan points at the book open before Rupert.  
“If I didn't know better, I'd think that you were just using me for my mind.”  
“Nonsense. I only love you for your body.”  
“So far, the only intriguing thing I've found is a recurring reference to something called the cult of Eyghon. It gets mentioned in the same breath, so to speak, as the Eleusinian Mysteries and other mystery religions. This is not, actually, a grimoire, but a history. This particular copy is only about fifty years old, but the text is at least two hundred years old, written in ancient Greek on, based on the author's notes, a lark, containing scattered accounts from various eras, many of them from several centuries before Christ. Now, the accounts, themselves, are more or less useless- for every redundancy, there's an unsubstantiated rumor. It's actually a funny little volume-”  
“It sounds hilarious.”  
“What were you expecting, the Philosopher's Stone? The lost city of Atlantis, perhaps?”  
“No. Just something a bit more glamorous. It's not like my mother to hold onto something for kitsch value.”  
“Well, as I said, this bit about the cult of Eyghon is intriguing, if only because no one seems all that eager to actually say what it is.”  
Ethan yawns. “Probably one of those fellows with chronic priapism. They used to love those. I'm taking a nap. Wake me up if you get to anything about ecstatic rites.”

Well, he did say to wake him.  
“Ethan.”  
“Hmm.” He doesn't open his eyes.  
“Ethan.”  
“Have you found something about ecstatic rites?”  
“Yes, actually.”  
“Oh.” Ethan opens his eyes and sits up. His shirt is undone several buttons and askew, and all Rupert wants to do is slip his hand into it. His throat feels tight. He takes off his glasses and wipes them on the hem of his tee shirt, which gives him a moment to compose himself.  
He puts his glasses back on. “Here,” he says and points into the book.  
“You'll have to tell me what 'here' refers to.”  
“This is the cult of Eyghon, complete with ecstatic rites. It's ancient, though no one knows exactly how old; it just seems to have sprung up at some point, and been going full-tilt by the time the writer came along. Unlike the Eleusinian Mysteries, it's not concerned with fertility. In fact, it seems to have more in common with Orphism or the worship of Dionysus- but even that is a bit of an oversimplification-”  
“Well, what is it, exactly?”  
“Eyghon, from what I can determine, was an entity of some kind, probably a genius loci, who could be invoked through certain rituals, and embodied-”  
“Embodied? You mean possession, don't you?”  
“Yes.”  
“Ah. That's interesting.”  
“I told you it was.”  
Ethan clears his throat. “Tell me more. Please.”  
“Well, the overarching purpose seems to have been ecstatic dissociation, not unlike that practiced by the Bacchae, but even more thorough.”  
“How did they do it?”  
“Well, with the usual ritual purification, bathing and fasting and abstaining-”  
“Not likely around here.”  
“As well as certain substances meant to derange the senses.”  
“Of course. And then what?”  
“Well, the person who's meant to be possessed goes into a heavy trance, and the other people in the group... probably chant a lot. It's all very vague. A couple of primary sources are mentioned, I even recognized one of them by name, and it would take some doing, but I think I could piece together a reproduction of the ritual. If, indeed, it was ever recorded, and I'm not just going to find more supposition.”  
“So, what was it all about, if not sex or death?”  
Rupert shrugs. “As far as I can tell, novelty. Amusement? Maybe power? The cult experienced a brief resurgence in southern Europe in the Renaissance, when it underwent some synthesis with the secret societies of the time, but about this, your mother's book is surprisingly uninformative.”  
“Well, if they had any kind of positive result using rituals that they'd partially constructed, themselves, I don't see why we shouldn't.”  
“Are you sure you want to do this, Ethan?”  
“Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?”  
“This isn't just conjuring or transmutation; this is bringing something into the world.”  
“Yes, something that nobody's seen in at least a few centuries. Can you imagine that? It's not books, it's not secondhand knowledge. If we could find a way to bind this Eyghon to this plane of existence, he- or she, or it- could show us things we can't even comprehend.”  
Suddenly, his glasses are heavy on the bridge of his nose; Rupert takes them off. “We need to research this. All of us. If it works, and we manage to draw down some kind of entity, I want to be prepared.”  
“Oh, yes.”  
“I'm serious, Ethan. I know what can happen when these things go badly. People die.”  
“I know they do.”  
“I don't want anything to happen to- to any of us.”  
“Of course not.”

But all the research in the world won't help your twenty-year-old selves when you're dealing with something older than recorded history. Something that rose in steam and magma from the crust of the earth in southern Italy, only to retire again for a few centuries, and then awake anew. So was born Eyghon, the Sleepwalker, to live a day in the cooling devastation, and die again. Until human beings blundered into his slumber, and he lived through them, burning them out one by one, bidding them mark their bodies in dedication to him and then taking them easily with the ecstasy of flame and vapor and promises of greater pleasure, still.  
The woman, Deirdre, is of least interest. She comes to him easily, to dance for days and to fuck and to laugh uproariously as she bends bars of iron in her hands, but when he leaves her, he leaves cleanly. Nothing of him remains in her, and there is nothing of her he wishes to keep.  
One man, Thomas, desires another, called Philip, and is aware that he's desired in return. Where there could be fulfillment, there is only shame, and this, Eyghon laps like flame. When he's in Philip, he draws Thomas to him, with promises of secrecy and cloying fidelity. The next night, from Thomas' mouth, he recounts everything that happened. He makes sure that Thomas is aware. When he leaves Thomas, he takes the old shame and leaves new shame.  
This other man, Randall, is in love. With all of his friends. And half of the people he meets in the street. And not a few of his blood relatives. Randall is what a kind person might call 'in love with love'. But Eyghon knows insatiable hunger for what it is- after all, he was born from the undying flame.  
Ethan hungers, as well, but for something less easy to define. Beneath a privileged young man's petulant boredom is- 'acceptance' is the easiest way to put it. Ethan wants simply to be. He cannot be enough. So, Eyghon gives him nights upon nights of being, of being as Ethan imagines the gods must be. And then he leaves him, refuses to touch him for weeks. Ethan mourns. Ethan aches. When Eyghon returns to him, he takes days to enjoy that flame of need.  
Ethan's little friend, Rupert, is another curious case. He admits Eyghon only once, and fights the whole time. Eyghon gives him everything he could possibly want, but it isn't enough. Rupert, Eyghon can only conclude, desires not pleasure but pain. So, Eyghon gives him that.  
He gives it to all of them, because it is their due. When he takes what is due him. Randall all but invites Eyghon to consume him, and for this, Eyghon loves him, as fire loves fuel. From within him, Eyghon burns brightly, brighter, brightest, until the candle is snuffed, and he is forced back into sleep.

He'd always looked on with incredulity the accounts of people who witnessed fatal wounds and remarked upon the great volume of blood. Ten pints wasn't that much, really, when you thought about it. What Rupert hadn't taken into account was the color. Ten pints of water, or ten pints of lager just didn't have the power to shock. But ten pints of blood-  
Someone's screaming. Until he touches his mouth and finds it closed, Rupert isn't sure it isn't him. There's blood on his hand. He gasps, and takes his hand away. There's a clap, like unto thunder, the sound of one person's hand slapping the face of another, and then  
“The rest is silence,” Rupert mutters. Then. “We have to call somebody.”  
“Yeah,” says Philip with a frayed-sounding laugh, “The man with the cart who picks up the dead.”  
“No,” Rupert whispers, then says in a louder voice, “I know people who- who can help.” He looks at Ethan, expecting a comment, or at least some kind of reaction, but gets nothing. No one says anything, actually, so after a moment of hesitation, he leaves the room and finds the telephone.  
The call, he makes as though in a dream. It's much easier than he thought it would be. For once, his father's total lack of emotion is a comfort. After relating his tale, all Rupert receives is a tight, 'I see', and the instruction to leave the house in as casual a manner as possible. No mention is made of his friends.  
“We have to leave,” he tells the others when he returns to them.  
“You've got blood on your face,” says Deirdre.  
“Thank you,” he murmurs and wipes with a handkerchief the place where he can feel it, stretched across his skin like a second one.  
“Should we all go together?” asks Thomas.  
“Yes,” says Ethan before Rupert can answer, “And now. We need to leave right now.”  
It's the last time any of them will see the house, its contents, its resident. Although there isn't a soul around for miles, Randall's home manages to burn down during the night. The papers have surprisingly little to say about it.  
Though, this is not strictly true, that all traces of Randall and the place he lived are razed from the earth. More than twenty-five years later, Rupert is being bored to tears by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce and his endless infatuation with his own erudition.  
“-And, of course, there's,” he names a book, terribly mangling its name with his clumsy pronunciation.  
“Nonsense,” sniffs Rupert, and removes his glasses, “There hasn't been a copy of that in circulation for at least a century.”  
Wesley replies with an even drier echo of the sound Rupert made, and “That you know of. We had a copy in our library. A gift to my father, from- well, never mind. Now, it's part of my collection.”  
“I don't believe you.”  
“I shall have to show it to you, then.”  
“Please do.”  
The next day, like a schoolboy at Show-and-Tell, Wesley produces the very volume. Carefully, Rupert turns the heavy pages until he comes to the two marked in the same place by small but visible circular stains, the one a reflection of the other. No matter how much he'd had to drink, Rupert was always very careful around the books. Some people weren't so cautious. Ethan had gasped, Shit, closed the book, replaced it on the shelf, then giggled to himself as Rupert frowned.  
“It's damaged,” Rupert says blandly.  
“Where?” says Wesley, and rushes to look.  
“There and there,” says Rupert, showing him.  
“Well, I didn't-”  
“Of course not. You'd have to have actually opened it. It's probably a fake, anyway.”

_Take me back, take me back!_

A year and a day...  
The house is the same. He doesn't know what he expected. Ruins, perhaps. Banners and parades and the slaughtering of the fatted calf? Certainly not. He's admitted like anybody else, and told to await his father outside of the door to his study. Rupert stands, for how long, he doesn't know, until the door opens. Mr. Travers walks out, and past Rupert without any acknowledgment. And Rupert walks in.  
He's missed a year of his studies, but allowances can be made. He was to have begun his training as a Watcher, but allowances can be made there, as well. Of course, he can't see any of those people again.  
Of course, Father.  
Quentin will want an interview.  
Yes, Father.  
And that's it. He's dismissed. No anger. No spite. No feeling, at all. It shames Rupert to admit it, but for the second time in his life, it's a comfort, a relief. It'll be a long time before he wants to have anything to do with anyone else's emotion again- nevermind feel any emotion of his own.  
It'll be an even longer time before he does. He'll finish his schooling, and he'll finish his training, and he'll labor in obscurity for more than two decades. Happy in his enforced misery, toiling as must monks or bees. Then, one day, he'll be told to pack his bags. He'll cross an ocean of water and an ocean of land, and find himself in a living hell of dry and pulsing sun. A well-meaning fool will employ him and give him over a library, where he'll rule like a king. He'll meet Buffy Summers; he'll know her before she even speaks her name. There were photos, of course, but they were outdated and the quality was poor. No- he knows her by her radiance, the young life and simple goodness shining out of her. He knows that he's only there because her last Watcher got himself killed, making her damaged goods. He knows, also, that if this placement doesn't work out, it could get very awkward for both of them. Almost instantly, he'll begin to hate her, and the hate will burn away quickly into annoyed concerned, and within six months of meeting her, he'll love her more than he thought it possible for him to love another human being. He'll love her with every dead part of himself that she awakens, and he'll want to protect her, and he'll want to give her the world. And he'll learn that both impulses are ultimately futile, because she doesn't need protection and because the world is already hers. He'll grow to love her friends, the girl he mistakenly calls 'Wilma' for a straight week and the boy whose name he remembers perfectly but whose face is a forgettable pudding.  
And after that? Buffy's death and her flight back to life. His own near death, many times over. The end of childhood for her and her friends. The return of Ethan, and of Eyghon. Kendra. Faith. Quentin Travers' expression when he tells Rupert that he's fired. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. The Mayor. The end of the library. The Initiative. Adam. The First Slayer.  
Ethan.  
Rupert's death. And what comes afterwards.  
The rest of his life.

_Look to where you have arrived; not to where you have come from._


End file.
